homework, income-inequality, literature-request, spirit-levelA few days ago I found this TED talk on economic inequality by Richard Wilkinson. The subject of the talk is the effects of inequality within a society, on the general well-being. Here is an excerpt from the talk:
Another really surprising part of this picture is that it’s not just the poor who are affected by inequality. There seems to be some truth in John Donne’s “No man is an island.” And in a number of studies, it’s possible to compare how people do in more and less equal countries at each level in the social hierarchy. This is just one example. It’s infant mortality. Some Swedes very kindly classified a lot of their infant deaths according to the British register of general socioeconomic classification. And so it’s anachronistically a classification by fathers’ occupations, so single parents go on their own. But then where it says “low social class,” that’s unskilled manual occupations. It goes through towards the skilled manual occupations in the middle, then the junior non-manual, going up high to the professional occupations – doctors, lawyers, directors of larger companies.
You see there that Sweden does better than Britain all the way across the social hierarchy. The biggest differences are at the bottom of society. But even at the top, there seems to be a small benefit to being in a more equal society. We show that on about five different sets of data covering educational outcomes and health in the United States and internationally. And that seems to be the general picture – that greater equality makes most difference at the bottom, but has some benefits even at the top.
Thus, that there might be a negative effect on the upper-class’ well-being from inequality.
Currently I have to write a paper on exactly this question, i.e. does inequality have a negative effect on the (upper-class’) well-being.
My question: what are good sources on this subject? For instance, the TED talks mentions a few other studies that support him, and mentions there is also criticism on his findings - both of which I cannot find.
The comprehensive one-stop shop for references is the bibliography of the book that Richard Wilkinson wrote with Kate Pickett, The Spirit Level - Why Equality is Better for Everyone
See also Status Anxiety by Alain de Botton, and Affluenza by Oliver James (caveat: the latter is richly anecdotal).
Christopher Snowdon (caveat - it's a blog based on his own book) has been one of the more vocal critics, and Wilkinson & Pickett respond to the criticisms here.
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